Public bug reported:
Summary:
This is a feature request, requesting that when a VGA cable is plugged into a
laptop, that it automatically produces a clone of the laptop screen on the
external monitor when the cable is plugged in, without having to do anything /
detect anything / change any settings / run any commands, besides physically
plugging in the cable.
Background:
I attended an Open Source conference recently (OSDC2008au), and one repeated
problem for people giving presentations or lighting-talks on their Linux
(generally Ubuntu, typically release 8.10) laptops, was when connecting their
laptop to the VGA projector, that the external display required some action to
get working. This was usually either through the menus (System -> Preferences
-> Screen resolution), or mucking about on the command line ("xrandr
--ridiculously --long --list --of --obtuse --command-line --arguments"), or
they had to reboot (and have the projector connected when rebooting). It was,
frankly, kind of embarrassing. The worst were the lighting talks - you've only
got 3 or 4 minutes from when you step up to the podium, and only about 65% of
people were able to get their laptops to work in that time, the rest just had
to wing it after giving up, and talk but not show their presentation. This is
not a satisfactory situation, and it reflects poorly on Ubuntu specifically and
on Linux in general, in a very public and humiliating way.
Disclaimers:
* I don't know if there's some way to automatically detect when a VGA cable is
plugged in. Obviously this is required. (e.g. on my laptop "xrandr" shows
different outputs when the cable is plugged in, and when it's not, but I don't
know if there's an event or something that gets generated when this situation
changes - hopefully there is, or one could be added).
* The Ubuntu 8.10 feature list / release notes included this line: "X.Org 7.4
brings in hot-plug support for multi-monitor setup - plug-in the external
monitor and resolution etc are automatically detected and set". I had (probably
mistakenly) assumed that this would mean that in Ubuntu 8.10 I would be able to
plug in a VGA cable after booting, and that it would "just work", but I can
only report that on my laptop (a Thinkpad T40, with ATI Mobility Radeon 7500
chipset) that it does not work. Also running "xrandr --output LVDS --auto
--output VGA --auto --same-as LVDS" or "xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1024x768
--output VGA --mode 1024x768" does not do anything either. Also doing things in
System -> Preferences -> Screen resolution does not work either. Pressing Fn-F7
doesn't seem to do anything either. The only thing that I have found that works
is to reboot, with the VGA cable plugged in, and that's the only way I have
found to get output on the external monitor to work (from memory, I think I can
then unplug it and then plug it back in and it will still work, as long as I
have not rebooted).
* I don't know if this should be logged upstream somewhere, or if this is a
meta bug (number of smaller updates required to achieve a larger objective), or
is a bug in specific driver (and everyone else already has this feature - but
from observing the conference, I highly doubt it). So I don't know where to log
this, but the fact remains that the current situation sucks, so it needs to be
logged somewhere, and hopefully it can be improved. If this is in the wrong
place, then I apologize, and please direct me to where it should be located,
and I'll log it there instead.
Dual desktop setups:
There should be some way to configure this for people that want dual desktop
set-ups (i.e. different outputs on laptop screen & the VGA out), but IMHO 95%
of the time a VGA cable is plugged into a laptop, it's because a person wants a
clone of the desktop, to give a presentation / show somebody something / use a
larger monitor. Furthermore, if you want a dual screen setup, then you are
typically not under the same time-pressure to get it working (i.e. there is not
a room of people sitting there waiting for you), so it's usually less of a
problem if it takes longer to configure a dual desktop. But automatically
cloning the laptop screen onto the VGA out, as soon as the cable is plugged in,
is going to the correct default action around 95% of the time.
** Affects: ubuntu
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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Automatically clone video output when plugging a VGA cable into a laptop. An
"It Just Works" presentation mode.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/306735
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